A Boy and His (Aunt's) Dog

K-K and her dog, Mia, are here for a visit. Jacks is in love with them both. Awwwww!!

Luke's New Trick

He has been sitting up on his own for a month or so, but up until now, he hasn't been particularly stable. If he started leaning one way, he'd just topple right over, unable to stop himself. Well now, he's pretty much mastered it! And it's ALL he wants to do. Tummy time is right out. Exersaucer, who needs it? Sitting up is where it's at!

He wasn't terribly thrilled with the grass, clearly. But that's not at all surprising, given that Jacks and Cody both cried when we first put them on grass. It's itchy, you see.

And here, you can see his new toofies. He got his bottom 2 together at 5 months, and then he went the freak route by getting his top right side tooth in next, followed immediately by the top right. Smile, snaggletooth!!

A Second Visit with Corduroy

(To see the first visit, go here.)

Yippee! Jackson was Star Student on Friday and picked his own name again so he got to bring me home for the whole long weekend! After school, we played with Jackson’s brother and Daddy outside for a while, and then we went to Chipotle to get cheese quesadillas for dinner. We walked over to Marble Slab for ice cream for dessert. I had chocolate in a sprinkles cone! Yum yum.

On Saturday morning, we got up early and headed to Krispy Kreme to get some donuts for breakfast. The best kind were the maple iced ones. Then later, we all went to the park to play. I went on the swings and the slide with Jackson. For dinner, we went to Magic Time Machine. We had Poison Ivy as our waitress and ordered blue magic potion to drink. When she brought it to me, it had smoke coming out the top! I was a little scared to taste it, but it was delicious! I played air hockey with Jackson upstairs in the arcade, and helped paint a dragon on his face.

On Sunday, we went to a birthday party at an Italian restaurant. I helped Jackson make our very own pizza! We rolled the dough with some flour, spread tomato sauce on it, sprinkled cheese and put some pepperoni on top. It was delicious! The birthday cake was decorated like a pizza, too, which was so cool. We also played Pin the Meatball on the Spaghetti and Pizza Toss.

On Monday, we went to Half-Price Books to find me a book all about bears. Jackson found me a really good one, and he read it to me right there in the store. Then I helped him find a book about sharks. We spent the afternoon playing the Caterpillar sprinkler because it was so hot. Unfortunately, I didn’t bring my bathing suit to Jackson’s house, so I could only watch. But he found me a nice spot in the shade and let me borrow his mom’s sunglasses, so I was very comfortable.

I had such a good time at Jackson’s house. I sure will miss him!

That Loving Feeling

We had dinner at a fun restaurant tonight called Magic Time Machine with Z (Jacks' BFF)'s family. The waitstaff all dress up like characters (Batman, Cinderella, Captain Jack Sparrow, and our waitress was Poison Ivy), and many of the tables are inside a bus, a crayon box, a sorcerer's hat, etc. The kids got their faces painted and enjoyed playing in the arcade upstairs. It was a pretty cool place, and certainly a change of pace from our usual weekend dinners out.

Jackson and Z are so great together. He is usually a fairly quiet and reserved kid, but she helps him come out of his shell. They pretend and jump and scream and sing and share. Never is he more animated than when he is with her.

And in return, he would do anything for her. Last week, he gave her a flower he'd found on the ground because she said she'd be his best friend if he let her have it. That mattered so much to him that he gave it to her. That same day, he also gave her his chair when all the others were full so that she could sit down, and he sat on the floor. She didn't ask him to (and I didn't ask him to), he just did it so she'd be happy. He has an amazing heart, that one.

There is such love there. You can see it. And boy, do I get a kick out of that. It makes me proud of them for being so good for each other, and humbled that a 4 and 5-year-old can make it look so dang easy. And so heartbroken for them both that they'll be separated when we move. :(

Indiana Jackson

Today was career day at Jackson's school. After thinking about being a scientist, and then briefly considering the cool-factor of dressing up like a police officer, he decided he wanted something to do with animals.

He got a stuffed snake at the zoo last weekend and has been wearing it around the house wrapped around his shoulders. He'd asked to take it to school to show off earlier in the week, and since they have a rule about no toys at school, I'd said no. But I racked my brains trying to think of a "career" that would require one to carry a snake around (and Britney Spears at the VMA's wasn't really an option LOL). So I suggested "animal expert." I got out one of my dad's hats that looks like something you might wear in the jungle, we attached one of Luke's hanging toys that just happens to be a parrot to a belt loop, and he covered his shirt with stickers of giraffes, elephants, and lions (that part, and wearing the shirt that had monkeys on it, was his idea!).

He just could not wait for today to get here, and he looked so great. After school, we went to the mall and a lot of people complimented him on his Indiana Jones hat. Of course, he has only a slight idea who that is since he hasn't seen the movies yet (something we're going to remedy this weekend) but he has seen ads for the new one. I told him that the biggest difference is that he's braver than Indiana Jones, because IJ is afraid of snakes and would NEVER wear one.

So we'll just call him Indiana Jackson. :)

Zoo Crew

We went to the "Morning Feeding" at the zoo this morning, where we had a special breakfast in the Wilds of Africa, pet and fed the Sting Rays for free, went crazy in a bounce house, and rode the Monorail. Our good friends Mara and Z met us there, and we all had a lot of fun!

Jackson's Birthday Came Early

We had Jackson's 6th Birthday party last weekend because we'll already be up in DC for his real birthday in June, and we wanted him to be able to celebrate with his buddies here in the Big D. The party was a raging success. The kids all had a great time running, jumping, swinging, hopping, and generally exhausting themselves (the party was at ASI Gymnastics).

Unfortunately, due to the fact that none of the party-goers was still for more than 2.9 seconds at a time, all of my pictures came out looking like this:


Or this (I believe that's part of a parallel bar. Or something.):

But Jackson was there.
And Cody, too.
And Jackson's best friend, Z, came, which MADE the party as far as Jacks was concerned. :)
Even Luke got in on the cake action.

So despite the lack of quality pictures, I'll just say a great time was had by all. And let the cake speak for itself (Note the little finger swipe of frosting missing from the bottom right corner. We suspect it fell victim to a Cody Mac Attack.). YUM-YUM.